OpenCDA

August 17, 2018

Monetizing Hypocrisy

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , , , — Bill @ 3:32 pm

HypocrisyTwelve former senior intelligence officials have signed a statement criticizing President Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.  Their letter asserts the President’s decision was based entirely on Brennan’s criticism of the President.

It is very likely that several of these officials were in that “special” category of officials who were allowed to retain their security clearances when they left the government service.   In fact, some of them may still have clearances on file with their final employer.

But as has become typical of our national, regional, and local skews media, we’re not getting the complete picture about the signators to this letter.   Some of them appear to be capitalizing on their clearance retention to financially enhance their retirement incomes. (more…)

June 14, 2018

DoJ OIG Final Report – FBI & DoJ Interference in 2016 Election

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , , , — Bill @ 8:07 pm

06-14-2018 OIG Report CoverThe long-awaited US Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General’s report concerning the FBI’s and DoJ’s interference in the 2016 election was released Jkune 14, 2018.  Here is a link to the 568-page (some pages blank) report.

I’m sure some readers will disagree with my characterization “the FBI’s and DoJ’s interference.”  Read the report and come to your own conclusions.  My opinion, a conclusion, is that they interfered, and that inteference seems to be continuing even now by the FBI’s and DoJ’s unlawfully withholding information Congress needs to perform its Constitutionally-required oversight.

Spontaneous statements can be valid indicators of state of mind.

The text messages between two high-up FBI employees, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, were spontaneous, not scripted.  One (see page 402 headed August 8, 2016) that was particularly chilling.  It read:

“In a text message on August 7, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s not ever going to become president, right?  Right?!”  Strzok responded, “No.  No he’s not.  We’ll stop it.” [emphasis mine]

Keep in mind that Peter Strzok was not some hump brick agent — he is an FBI Deputy Assistant Director.  Lisa Page was the Special Counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.   It’s fair to wonder just how far they would be willing to go to stop Donald J. Trump from being elected President.

And yet in a press conference Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray reiterated what was asserted in the report:  There was nothing in the FBI’s conduct of the investigation that indicated political bias.   (more…)

May 20, 2018

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , — Bill @ 11:39 am

COSI-TopSecret-Today’s Washington Times online is running an article headlined  Top Democrat deems claims Trump campaign was spied on ‘nonsense’.

Sadly, even with mounting evidence to the contrary, there are people who refuse to believe that employees of the FBI and DoJ, acting under color of law, would spy illegally on political organizations.  History proves their disbelief to be misplaced.

Google COINTELPRO

Even the FBI’s own website acknowledges that COINTELPRO “…was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons.”

The aphorism in the title of my post is most often attributed to George Santayana.

May 11, 2018

Just Who Is Our Enemy Here?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , — Bill @ 12:05 pm

COSI-TopSecret-If you haven’t yet read Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel’s column posted on May 10, 2018, please take the time to read it.  It was entitled About That FBI ‘Source’.

Strassel asserts that Rosenstein and the US Department of Justice are stonewalling the House Intelligence Committee’s most recent subpoena because, “… the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.”

Strassel’s column implies that the FBI inserted  a highly-placed human intelligence source or recruited one already inside the Trump campaign before the 2016 election.  She also says, “… we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a ‘top secret intelligence source’ of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe.” [emphasis mine]  In other words, she suggests the FBI was running an intelligence collection operation inside the Trump campaign.

Assuming Strassel and her competitors at the Washington Post have the straight scoop, it raises a few  questions.

  • Was the Trump Campaign the only presidential campaign targeted or were other presidential candidate campaigns targeted as well?  If so, which ones?
  • Who made the final decision to allow the FBI to run a collection operation inside the Trump campaign?  Who had the authority to okay ‘a top secret intelligence source of the FBI and CIA’ to collect information about or exert influence on a candidate or nominee for President of the United States?
  • Was the ‘top secret intelligence source’ a human being or technical device(s) or combination of both?
  • Who or what was the actual target of the collection operation?  If it was only for collection, what were the essential elements of information sought?
  • Was the ‘top secret intelligence source’ of the FBI and CIA an information collector or was s/he an agent of influence (or both)?
  • Who was the human source’s handler/case officer?  To whom did the ‘top secret intelligence source’ report?
  • When?
    • When was this operation first proposed and by whom?
    • When was the operation finally approved?
    • When did the operation launch?
    • When will Congress subpoena the Case Officer’s contact reports and source?
    • If the operation began and continued after Trump had officially become the Republican nominee and was therefore receiving national security briefings, when was the Secret Service notified of this operation as it should have been?
    • When did this operation end (assuming it has!)?
    • When was candidate/nominee/President Trump first notified of this operation and by whom?
  • Was the collection operation limited to personal observations and recollections of the ‘top secret intelligence source’ or was the ‘top secret intelligence source’ allowed or directed to spot, assess, and recruit other human sources within the Trump campaign?

The actions of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to resist the HPSCI’s subpoenas only adds to the plausibility of the Washington Post’s and Wall Street Journal’s articles.  President Trump can if he chooses declassify everything DoJ and the CIA have on this matter.  Whether he should or not must be based on legitimate national security considerations, not political expedience or advantage.

July 29, 2017

Debbie Does Dulles

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , , , — Bill @ 8:05 am

DWSchultzOn Monday, July 24, 2017, Special Agents of the US Capitol Police (USCP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Capitol Hill IT contractor Imran Awan as he tried to board an airplane at Dulles International Airport and fly to his homeland of Pakistan via Qatar.   The FBI affidavit supporting his arrest alleges Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, filed a fraudulent mortgage loan application.

Hina Alvi had already pulled their children out of school, stuffed over $12,000 in cash and some household goods in cardboard boxes, and left the United States (some might say “fled the United States”) for Pakistan.

Before July 24th, few readers could probably recall hearing anything about Imran Awan.   They might have heard something about some damaged computer equipment belonging to some members of Congress being found at a home rented by Awan and his wife.   They might have read deep into the already sketchy skews stories that one of the computers found belonged to Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  In fact, good ol’ Debbie threatened the USCP in public if it dared process the purloined computer for evidence.

Otherwise, because the AWAN storyline did not involve pimping unsubstantiated gossip about President Trump’s “collusion” with Russia, the national skews media weren’t especially interested.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.  Move along.

Except there was and is something to see.

It seems that Representative Schultz had arranged for Industrious Imran to be the go-to IT contractor for several Democrat members of the House of Representatives, some of them on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.  In fact, Industrious Imran and his partners had each been raking in an unusually high amount of money from these contracts for several years.

OpenCdA urges our handful of readers to take the time and read the series of articles by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

There are quite a few reasonable and interesting questions likely to be asked by the USCP and the FBI to determine if the computers and the emails on them contained any personal or national security information that could be used to manipulate and control the members of Congress on behalf of any foreign intelligence service.

November 14, 2016

FBI Director Comey’s Letters

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , , — Bill @ 7:20 pm

hillaryloserfsbPredictably, Hillary Clinton blames FBI Director James Comey for her loss in the 2016 presidential election.  She asserts that Comey’s July and October comments and letters to certain Congressional oversight committee chairmen and minority ranking members caused some of her supporters to vote for Trump or at least not vote for her.

Assume she’s correct about the influence Comey’s letters may have had on some voters.

The real question, then, is whether Comey acted with malice or favoritism toward either nominee.  Did he intend to influence the outcome of the election?

OpenCdA doesn’t think he did.  An equally strong and even more plausible argument is that Comey was performing the duties required and expected of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hillary Clinton’s illegal storage and retention of national security information on her unsecured private email server and her illegally allowing unauthorized persons (e.g., her housekeeper) to handle and view that information elevated the severity of her actions.  More than just violating statutes and administrative orders, Clinton maliciously jeopardized the national security.  As Secretary of State,  Clinton was required to know and understand the various national security regulations and laws to not only conform her own conduct but also to ensure her employees complied with those regulations and laws as well.    By virtue of her position, she knew using the private email server to traffic in national security information was wrong.  She cannot claim ignorance as a defense.

As we’ve pointed out in several preceding OpenCdA posts, the FBI has multiple responsibilities.   Not all of them will or should end in an arrest, prosecution, and trial.  Protecting the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage is frequently at the top of that list.

Whether the Clintons  want to admit it or not, their knowingly allowing her server to be used to exchange national security information seriously jeopardized the national security.  Using BleachBit overwrite software, Clinton intentionally tried to hide evidence of her culpability from the Intelligence Community.    The effect was that she obstructed the Intelligence Community’s effort to assess the damage done to national security.  She made it difficult and maybe impossible to conclusively itemize what national security information was actually compromised and by whom.

If the Clinton private email server had not been used to traffic in national security information, it would likely not have been of even passing interest to Congress.   But once the FBI determined the server had been used to unlawfully store national security information, it had a duty to investigate and keep Congress informed about the threat to national security.  To do otherwise is to make it difficult or impossible for Congress to exercise its responsibility to oversee Executive Branch departments and agencies.

FBI Director James Comey was between the dog and the fire hydrant, but it was Hillary Clinton who pumped the dog full of diuretics when she created her illegal email server and used it to illegally traffic in national security information.

FBI Director James Comey did not conceive, build, and use the backchannel unsecured email system.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did.

November 1, 2016

Cooperating Witness? Or Defendant?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , — Bill @ 4:42 pm

humaabedinweinerNow we learn that the FBI discovered some Hillary email server case emails on the laptop computer of none other than Huma Abedin’s estranged husband Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner.

Through her personal attorney, Abedin states she didn’t know those emails were on Anthony Weiner’s computer.

If Abedin is denying using Carlos’ computer for work-related emails, then how did the emails get there?

It appears to OpenCdA that the FBI now owns Huma Abedin.  She swore under oath that she had turned over all devices containing Clinton email server related messages.

It also appears to us that Abedin has two choices:  She can become a fully cooperating truth-telling witness in the FBI’s investigations of both Clinton’s email and her family’s foundation,  or she can become a defendant and risk spending time in a federal penitentiary.  Since daddy is likely already facing prison time for soliciting sex with an underage girl, if Huma wants to give their four year-old son Jordan some semblance of a normal life, it shouldn’t be a difficult choice.

October 27, 2016

… And Now We Know Who and Why

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , , — Bill @ 12:59 pm

hillaryfsb78FBI Director James Comey’s July 5th announcement surprised many people, but it completely stunned the over 100 FBI investigators and 6 DoJ National Security Division attorneys who had worked on the Clinton private email server investigation.   The investigative team had nearly unanimously recommended charging Democrat Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton with numerous very serious violations of national security laws.

But thanks to recent FBI releases of more of her emails which Clinton thought she had not only deleted but overwritten as well, the world now knows that President Barack Hussein Obama had directed his sycophant Attorney General Loretta Lynch that under no circumstances was Clinton to be charged with any crimes.

Many people would assume Obama’s order to Lynch was to protect Clinton’s candidacy.  But again thanks to the FBI releases of the emails, even liberal propaganda mills the New York Times and Politico were forced to report that Obama was more likely trying to prevent one of his own very serious lies to the American public from being revealed.

On March 15, 2015, Obama gave a highly-publicized interview in which he told the world he had learned about Clinton’s private email server the same way as everyone else — from the news.  The Clinton email dump reveals that Obama was lying, and Hillary Clinton, her lawyer Cheryl Mills, and her campaign advisor John Podesta knew it.   A March 7, 2015, email from Mills to Podesta told Podesta about emails from Obama (using a pseudonym) to Clinton on her private server that long predated his March 15, 2015, interview.   Here are the Politico story and the New York Times story.

And now we know why FBI Director James Comey said what he said on July 5.

Comey almost certainly had been told by Lynch that she really didn’t care what evidence the FBI and DoJ investigators found.  She had already made an agreement with Barack Hussein Obama to decline prosecuting Clinton.  Why?  Because any prosecution of Clinton would most certainly have revealed the President’s own bald-faced lie to the people.

Infinitely more worrisome than Obama’s lie to the public, a Clinton criminal trial could and probably would reveal that Obama was aware the server was illegally being used to store classified information.  Even the very bribable Democrats and lily-livered Republicans in Congress would be forced to deliberate impeachment, not of Obama (who will presumably be gone on January 20, 2017) but of President Hillary Clinton.

Loretta Lynch’s loyalty may at some point in her legal career have been to the principle of rule of law and the US Constitution.  No longer.  Loretta Lynch’s loyalty is to Barack Hussein Obama.   The public will rightly wonder what tangible gratuity Lynch will receive in return from the Clintons or their Foundation.

It’s highly doubtful that Lynch has either the personal or professional integrity and dignity to follow in the steps of Nixon’s Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus.  They resigned rather than follow Nixon’s politically-motivated orders to fire the special prosecutor.  Lynch didn’t even have the courage to refuse to meet privately on her government airplane with the disgraced former President William Jefferson Clinton even though her Justice Department was investigating Clinton’s wife for her crimes which gravely imperil the national security.

The American public should be very, very concerned that Obama’s US Department of Justice, particularly but not exclusively Mahogany Row at Main Justice, has become so politicized.

One of the often-heard arguments against Hillary Clinton’s presidency is that she will likely be able to appoint at least three US Supreme Court justices.  Voters need to recognize that it is worse than that.

The ideological contamination will not be limited to appellate decisions by the US Supreme Court.

The next President will appoint not only Supreme Court justices.  The next President will also appoint some new or additional federal judges and appoint or reappoint some or all of the 94 US Attorneys.  For citizens who need to seek the remedy and justice of the federal courts, the thought that any or all of those appointees could be like Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch or Janet Reno or John Mitchell or Ed Meese or Alberto Gonzales is terrifying.

September 15, 2016

Medical Intelligence

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: — Bill @ 12:39 pm

medintelSince Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton started coughing and recently appeared to collapse as she was approaching her van, the Trump campaign and the public, including many in the skews media, have been calling for  to release her medical records.  Naturally, the Clinton campaign wants to see Trump’s medical records as well.

“The voters are entitled to know about the health of the next President of the United States!” the bombasters of radio and television infotainment, skews, and political spin have decreed.

But there are other considerations arguing for confidentiality.  National security is at the top of the list.

It shouldn’t shock anyone to learn that the intelligence services of the world spend a great deal of time and money trying to gather medical intelligence about world leaders in government, military, and business.  They are also intensely interested in the emotional and psychological makeup of their adversaries.

The physical health of an individual influences his or her ability to comprehend information and make decisions.   From an intelligence perspective, knowledge of a leader’s physical and mental conditions adds to the information an adversary needs to influence an opponent’s decisions whether in diplomacy or warfare.

Would Nikita Khrushchev’s urinalysis results have been helpful to the CIA to aid President Eisenhower in dealing with the shootdown of our U-2 spy plane?

If the President was wearing a wireless Holter monitor to track an irregular heartbeat, would it be helpful to an adversary to know what that monitor indicated?

Or if the President was hospitalized with a traumatic injury, would the bandages, containers, and instruments bearing the President’s bodily fluids yield DNA results of intelligence value?  What about laboratory tissue samples?

Would detailed and accurate knowledge of the President’s ailments and medications be useful to another government whose leader might be interested in disabling but not killing the President to cause the 25th Amendment to be invoked?

OpenCdA does not agree with those who demand that all presidential candidates must release medical information.   The information may salve our curiosity, but that same information in the wrong hands will have serious adverse consequences in both diplomacy and warfare.

The medical conditions of the next President of the United States are indisputably a national security issue.

September 11, 2016

Deep Throat, Ver. 2.0?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , — Bill @ 1:45 pm

comeyWill present FBI Director James Comey be revealed in the footnotes of history as ‘Deep Throat, Ver. 2.0?’

OpenCdA certainly hopes so.  It would help explain Comey’s contradictory conduct in the Clinton email and Foundation investigations.  Out of one side of his mouth, Comey has laid out sufficient evidence for the criminal indictment of Hillary Clinton on numerous violations of national security and criminal law.  Yet out of the other side, he has said no reasonable prosecutor would even consider such a filing.

We cling to one last very weak straw of hope that Comey and the FBI have not succumbed to Beltway Toxicity and subordinated the country’s foundational principle of the rule of law to the rule of man (or woman).

Comey knows that the decision to charge or not charge Hillary Clinton with the crimes she has allegedly committed rests exclusively with the US Attorney General and her headnodders on Mahogany Row at Main Justice.

OpenCdA readers will recall, however, that after what Attorney General Loretta Lynch said was a purely spontaneous meeting between her and Slick Willy in late June on the tarmac at Sky Harbor Aiport, Lynch promptly said she would not make the decision to charge or not charge, leaving it up to her subordinates at Main Justice.

Our hope is that Comey is doing publicly what former FBI Deputy Director W. Mark Felt did sub rosa during Watergate:  Turn whistle-blower to get evidence of Hillary Clinton’s culpability into the voters’ hands.   For years Felt was identified only by the pseudonym ‘Deep Throat’ in connection with the Watergate scandal.

Unlike Mark Felt who astutely played on the Washington Post owner Katharine Graham’s disdain for Nixon, Comey has chosen to neuter the Clinton-worshipping skews media by going directly to the people.  With his initial public statement on July 5, 2016, and then with the FBI’s release of its summary of the investigation in a bury-it-deep news dump the Friday before Labor Day, Comey has laid out the evidence showing more than enough to support criminal indictments of Clinton and some of her close associates.  The skews media had to report Comey’s releases even though the facts undermined Clinton’s and the media’s assertions of innocence.

Of course, we have acknowledged being wrong about Loretta Lynch’s judgment and integrity, so we must also consider that this Wall Street Journal editorial and this Breitbart exposé may have been more on the mark about FBI Director James Comey.

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